Where is the federal Equal Rights Amendment that Maine ratified 50 years ago today?

Citizens of Maine have waited 50 years for the rest of the nation to agree on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that they approved in 1974. The Equal Rights Amendment would give full rights of citizenship to all Americans, regardless of their sex. America’s women have stood to benefit from this amendment since the nation’s founding. We are still waiting.

When the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, its democratic principles did not apply to most of the people. Women, enslaved people, native people, and the poor were not among those in the radical concept of  “We the People.” Over the years, the Constitution has been amended to include some of those excluded people, but no amendment has yet established women’s full legal equality.

The Equal Rights Amendment states:

“Equality of Rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Pretty simple. Very clear. Most Americans support the idea that women and men should be treated equally by law. Yet the ERA has been blocked for decades by well-funded special interest groups.

The ERA has suffered every indignity that politics could throw at it, from arbitrary time limits on ratification, to fear-mongering by those who do not want to see women’s roles change. But women’s roles and responsibilities have changed a lot since the 1700s, and the U.S. Constitution has not caught up with us. Ours is the oldest operating constitution in the world. Its amendments have made some necessary changes and additions to an 18th-century vision of democracy. But what should be the 28th Amendment, the ERA still waits for recognition.

Maine is one of 38 states to have now ratified the ERA. By many accounts, it should be considered the 28th Amendment. Congress now needs to do its job and recognize the ERA as a completed amendment, an enduring principle of democracy. It would become the legal bedrock that ensures that laws affecting women are enforced with the respect and justice owed us as full citizens.

A fully recognized ERA protects a woman’s right to fair pay for equal work, to be safe at work and at home, to receive full medical care, and to find a fair way to care for family members and to age in dignity. Because the U.S. has had a long history of treating women as second-class citizens, America now needs a statement of our ideals to set us on a fair course, and to see that we don’t backslide.

Our delegation to Congress from Maine is unanimous in its support of the federal ERA. However, final recognition of the amendment is stalled in the U.S. Senate. While Congress drags its feet, we need a state ERA for Maine. With a state ERA, laws and policies in our state affecting women will, for the first time, have the full force of the law.

In the absence of a federal ERA, 26 states have already added equality statements to their state constitutions. More states are currently considering state amendments. Equality amendments have been proposed in Maine’s legislature for the past four sessions, each time falling short of the required 2/3 majority to send it to the voters in referendum.

When it comes time to re-elect your state legislators, vote for those who want to see Maine women fairly represented by a state ERA. Maine approved the principle of legal equality for women by ratifying the federal ERA 50 years ago and our state constitution should do the same.

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